108-note pianos cover new and unexplored musical territory, sometimes with unexpected but nonetheless logical consequences. Take musical notation, as an example. The treble and bass clefs each have only five lines, so notes and above the staves are notated using ledger lines. If these get unwieldy, such as is the case with the high and low notes, then notations such as 8va (to play one octave above the written note) and, less commonly, 15ma (to play two octaves above the written note) are used.

The Stuart & Sons 108-note piano introduces another level. In order to notate the octave up to B8 without an excessive number of ledger lines, it is necessary to specify three octaves above the written note. To my knowledge, this has never been required for any other instrument, including the piano. Hunting around on the net is not helpful in this regard, but given 8va and 15ma, it seems logical that three octaves above the written note should be notated as 22ma.

Inventors have to be inventive Fred and I think it would be great if Stuart & Sons invented a new symbol for the three octave notes. They could certainly do as you suggest and put 22ma above the note, another possibility would be to Sorabjify the notes by writing them on a third stave which could be designated 15ma which would make any notes above the stave readable as you would normally find in music that flies above the stave. Whatever they do it must be logical in a reading sense so that your brain can make the leap into the stratosphere without needing a springboard. I look forward to their solution which no doubt you will tell us all about in this thread.
cheers and good luck
Brian

It did, thank you. I have a copy of the Bravura font, and found 22ma. I will proceed on that basis. Full SMuFL support will eventually come to most notation programs, so hopefully that will make things much easier.

HullandHellandHalifax wrote:I look forward to their solution which no doubt you will tell us all about in this thread.

Tim’s link provides an important lead since the SMuFL standard could eventually be adopted by notation programs. The extra octave is enormously useful in so many ways, but ‘22ma’ is an unused word in the piano repertoire and will take some getting used to visually. Physically, it took me quite a while to learn where the extra octave was. Playing the Pärt was initially very confusing - there are just so many notes up there. Having said that, one you get used to it, its a real buzz to play.

As an aside, the piano weighs 640kg. It’s no lightweight, physically or pianistically.